34 HARVESTING ANTS. 



an inch in breadth, and half an inch in height. 

 Tlie walls were tolerably smooth, but not prepared or 

 glazed in the way that certain small terminal cells 

 which I shall shortly describe were. The surfaces, 

 however, had a very different appearance to that of 

 the surrounding sandstone, being of a darker and 

 brownish colour, and seeming to be coated with some 

 kind of dressing or cement. , 



One of these tunnels at first took a horizontal course 

 for two and a half inches, then descended vertically for 

 an inch and a half to a point where it made two hori- 

 zontal branches, and from these latter several other 

 vertical galleries descended, two of which we were able 

 to trace until they expanded into a cluster of small pear- 

 shaped cells, the walls of which were quite smooth and 

 very carefully laid with plates of mica and cement. I 

 was able to draw this on the spot, Fig. A, Plate V., while 

 Mr. Lightbody worked it out piecemeal with hammer 

 and chisel. It was unfortunately impossible to se- 

 cure more than very imperfect fragments as specimens. 

 These terminal cells were empty when we came to 

 them, but it is quite possible that the ants may have 

 conveyed away larvae or winged ants from them, 

 having received abundant notice of the coming danger 

 from the continued jarring of the chisel-work. 



One entrance to this nest lay in a small accumula- 

 tion of soil in a hollow of the rock, and it was at this 

 point that the refuse from the nest was cast out. In- - 

 deed, had it not been for the accidental circumstance of 

 myhaving traced the ants to the newly hewn step in the 

 sandstone, I might never have discovered the fact that 

 the nests are sometimes carried deep into the living rock. 



With this to guide me, however, I succeeded in find- 

 ing a second nest of the same kind, and here I was 



